


Party Drug

by Inu_Sama



Series: Shameless(US) [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Bad Boy Ian Gallagher, Blood and Gore, Dark, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Male Slash, Slow To Update, Threats of Violence, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex, Underage Smoking, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-27 15:01:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18195737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inu_Sama/pseuds/Inu_Sama
Summary: Our neighbourhood is like a homing beacon for the criminally inclined that were too poor to get into one of the other, nicer neighbourhoods - ones where home invasion is a horror story instead of a daily irritant.





	Party Drug

**Ian**

I'm in the kitchen with Lip, rummaging through the sink for some at least semi-clean plates for dinner when we hear the front door open. I see my brother pause out of the corner of my eye and I tense too, South Side paranoia at its finest. 

Our neighbourhood is like a homing beacon for the criminally inclined that were too poor to get into one of the other, nicer neighbourhoods - ones where home invasion is a horror story instead of a daily irritant.

We listen intently, but after a moment of anticipation, where my heart is trying to crawl up through my throat and my fingers are numb - we hear our father's slurred voice boom a happy greeting to our sister, who is in charge of looking after the youngest Gallaghers, Carl and Debbie.

Our mother is off somewhere, no doubt on another trip to 'find herself' before she slinks back home like a kicked puppy after a few months. It's been a couple of weeks already but I refuse to miss her on principle at this point. 

I can tell my brother feels the same way, though I know Fiona still holds onto some shred of hope she'll flounce back in and become a Stepford Wife and do everything a mom's supposed to do, everything an  _ adult's  _ supposed to do instead of leaving it up to the eldest.

"Looks like Frank's back, just in time for free food." Lip dismisses with a roll of his eyes, he's balancing on the counter looking through the cupboards, his bare foot stuck in an old and mouldy tray of leftover lasagna that wouldn't fit in the fridge. 

He'd grimaced at it when his foot accidentally landed in there, but he was too desensitised to care too much.

We're young(only about ten and eleven, respectively), but are already disillusioned to the concept of parents. Especially after the time Frank ran off and left us with a bunch of angry Milkoviches that quickly learned that if a Gallagher is good at anything, it's running.

Seriously, our family(the boys at least, because 'round here very rarely is a woman beaten - some twisted form of leftover honour, I think) could have been track stars, gone to the Olympics and everything. 

We'd had to leave the groceries Fi'd sent us to get obviously, but if it was between having food for the next few days and being beaten to a pulp, she wasn't too mad. She's soft like that.

Considering it wasn't our fault Frank had jipped the Patriarch of the Milkovich family a few hundred bucks in their last poker game, I figured it was better than taking a 'Guilt by Association' beating from Mickey and his brothers.

We relax some and return to our tasks - that is, until Fiona screams. 

"Oh shit!" both of us hiss at the same time, hackles immediately rising. Trying to think through the sudden adrenaline spike, I grab one of the (for once) clean kitchen knives from the bench and hide it in the waistband of my hand-me-down jeans.

"What are you doing?" Lip whispers frantically as he jumps down from the counter. Two male voices I've never heard before start talking loudly about how much my sister would fetch, enough to cover... _ Frank's bill _ . 

Of course it's because of him, it's  _ always  _ because of him! He's going to  _ sell his daughter _ to get out of paying a debt! If I didn't already hate him, that would have definitely been the straw that broke the camel's back.

"I have to do  _ something!  _ Frank's not gonna save her." I grit my teeth, jaw working as I try to stop myself from just charging in there, I'd probably get shot. Lip's eyes widen before they narrow in determination, the situation clicking and plans already forming in my brother's brilliant mind. 

He's the smartest of us, but I'm the one willing to do whatever it takes to get something done. Understandably, we work well together.

"Okay, but you have to go 'round back, I'll work on a distraction. Be careful." Lip says quietly, a hand squeezing the back of my neck in reassurance as our foreheads press together. I nod and quickly scramble out the back window (because the back door is in plain sight of the living room), landing roughly on the grass below. 

The wind's knocked out of me and there is gonna be a huge bruise on my side later, but I get to my feet anyway, having experienced more than enough pain to know this is nothing and I can keep going. I have to keep going, for Fi. 

Our family needs her too much for me to just stand by and let Frank ruin another person's life. I would do it for all my siblings, but Fi is especially important. She's the heart while Lip's the brain and I'm the fists.

The body can't function without its heart, after all.

"Make sure to grab the bat!" Lip hisses from the window just before I turn the corner. I acknowledge the command with a middle finger and he snorts, whispering a 'fuck you' before I'm out of range. 

It's only when I'm creeping through the still open front door that I realise I don't know what my brother's plan actually is. He's in the living room with the others, talking fast at the two men that (thankfully) have their backs to me, one of them holding Fiona by the neck while the other has a gun trained on Frank.

Not that the bastard would do anything, he's the one that lead them here in the first place. I carefully free the Family Protection Bat from its hook on the first landing of the stairs and look over to Lip for further instruction.

He isn't looking at me, but his fingers are tapping basic morse code discreetly against his leg;

_ 'Give...here...knees' _

I could have kissed the other boy for having the forethought to take the time to painstakingly teach me that particular skill, being able to understand morse code is quickly proving to be more valuable than I'd first thought. I nod, knowing Lip can't look in my direction enough to read my answer. 

Briefly glaring a warning at Frank to keep his trap shut when our eyes meet, I change my grip on the bat to get ready to throw it. In response, my father just sits back in his recliner and sips at his beer in silence.

I quietly make my way back to the front door, since it is at the center of their backs and they won't be able to see me in the corner of their eyes if they become less focused on my brother's never-ending stream of nervous bullshitting.

Watching Lip's fingers intently, I throw the bat between the two men the moment he gives the signal and pull out my knife. Lip goes for the one with the gun first, slamming the meat of the bat into the side of each knee, breaking them. 

Fi cries out in shock when a wild shot goes off, landing somewhere in the drywall on the other side of the room as the man falls to his hands and knees with a scream. I waste no time getting in behind the man on the floor, driving my knife through the side of his neck and pulling it out without thinking.

Blood spurts as the man turns towards me in pained surprise, absolutely coating me from almost head to foot. The other man loosens his grip on my sister and she takes the opportunity to jam her foot into his instep and swing around to knee him in the balls. 

Once she has his own gun pointed at him, the man still reeling from the pain and shock, all eyes turn to me as the first man finally collapses, dead.

My breaths are quick and shallow as the weight of what I've just done sinks into my suddenly sluggish brain. Lip's looking at me, at the blood, at the corpse lying in front of me and then the bat in his hands and drops it, eyes wide and lips parted in horror.

I drop the knife at the same time, the sound of it making a wet clatter against the ruined carpet echoes in my ears as my vision starts to blacken around the edges. 

I'm having a panic attack. I'm having a panic attack because I just killed someone. I'm having a panic attack because I just killed someone and everyone's looking at me like I'm a monster, like they've never seen me before until just now.

"I...I didn't...he just...it was…" I try to get out around the lump in my throat, but all I can see is the blood, it's  _ everywhere _ . I look down to see my hands are shaking, drops of blood flicking haphazardly from my fingers with the force of it. 

There are sirens outside now, a neighbour must have called the police when the gunshot sounded, not to mention the screams.

Two men in uniform come into the house, pausing a moment in shock when they take in the scene. Take in the knowledge that a ten year old managed to kill a full grown man. 

They immediately arrest the guy that's still alive, taking the gun from my sister's hands as they are familiar with the Gallagher family and knows she didn't do anything bad. 

I look up from my hands to first Lip, who's crying now, tears silently tracing tracks down his cheeks, the situation and all the ways I'm completely fucked probably overwhelming him. 

I look up at Fi next, but she isn't paying attention to me, too busy telling them what happened and pleading with them to not arrest me too. But she doesn't say it was an accident, that I didn't mean to kill him - and that hurts. That hurts a lot.

Finally, I meet Frank's gaze that's been burning a hole into the side of my face since the knife left the other man's skin. For once he looks... _ scared _ . Genuinely scared. His beer is lying shattered on the ground and he's halfway out of his seat, seemingly frozen with flecks of blood on his shirt.

But I don't know if it's  _ for  _ me or  _ of  _ me and I find myself scared to find out which. Carl and Debbie are somewhere on the other side of the room, both crying but only Carl is looking at me, his dark eyes taking in the blood on my clothes and face with a strange kind of focus that should not be possible for a five year old.

Suddenly it's all too much and as the officers go further into the room, away from the front door, I bolt. It looks like the whole neighbourhood is out here, the Milkoviches especially rubbernecking at the sight of me from the end of the street. 

But I barely spare them a glance as I leap over the front fence and start hightailing it down the road in their direction when I hear the officer's shouts for me to stop. My breaths are harsh and billow around me in the cold night air, the blood quickly drying on my skin. 

I know they won't shoot me, Greg and Barry know me, they went to my birthday party last week and took me and Lip to play paintball with the rest of the force.

I'm almost at the corner, right next to the gaggle of Milkoviches - whose eyes are bouncing between me and the cops chasing me, probably entertained enough to keep standing barefoot in the snow icing the sidewalk - by the time they catch up to me, the gravel and bindis on my bare feet had slowed me down too much and the back of my hood is snagged by a gloved hand. 

I neck myself, stumbling backwards with a choked-off shout into Barry's waiting arms that wrap around my middle, trapping my arms to my sides as I'm picked up.

"No! Fuck off! Let me go!" I shout, kicking and wriggling in the iron vice that is Barry's arms for all I'm worth. I can't go to juvie! The family needs me! Lip needs me! How's Fi gonna pay the bills without my cut? I scream in frustration, trying and failing to kick the man in the balls.

" _ Damn _ , Gallagher! You tryin' ta set some sorta record or somethin'?" Terry Milkovich whistles, impressed. I swivel my head to glare at him and snarl, teeth bared as anger sparks in the pit of my stomach at his casual tone.

"I wasn't just gonna let those assholes TAKE MY SISTER!" I growl, ignoring Barry's attempts to calm me down. In response, I drive the back of my head right into his nose, hearing the telltale crack. 

I'm let go with a curse as Barry falls to his knees and tries to staunch the blood flowing down his face and I waste no time in getting to my feet and making a break for it. 

I make it maybe another couple meters before Greg swoops in and tackles me to the ground, a calloused hand pushing the side of my face into the gravel.

"Now, we've tried to be nice, Ian, cuz we know you're a good kid. But you killed a guy, you hear me? He's  _ dead _ , ain't ever comin' back." Greg says seriously from his perch on top of me. 

He says it loud enough for everyone watching to hear and there's gasps and whistles and exclamations of respect and surprise and horror - all of varying degrees. All of varying moral statuses.

The fact that Papa Milkovich laughs in genuine delight is telling enough about the state of  _ his  _ moral compass. Though I don't really have the right to judge anymore, do I?

I stubbornly remain silent, too focused on trying to free my arms from Greg's tight grip. He sighs, exasperated and twists my arms up my back painfully, rendering them mostly unmoveable. 

It doesn't stop me, he'd have to break them before I would consider leaving Fiona and Lip to deal with everything on their own.

"If you don't cooperate, I'll take Lip up for manslaughter. It might not have been his intention, but he still helped you." I stop then, gritting my teeth. It's bad enough that  _ I'm  _ going away - probably for years - but Lip? I can't do that to him.

"Good boy." Greg cooes as he lifts me up and cuffs my wrists together. 

"Fuck you." I spit, but there's almost no heat in it as he wraps a hand around my bicep and tugs me back towards his car. 

My eyes briefly catch on Mickey Milkovich's, idly wondering what he thinks of the kid he regularly runs down and beats up for the stupidest reasons. 

His blue eyes are wide with shock and a little fear but true to the Milkovich way, his face is twisted into a scowl.  It makes a kernal of sick satisfaction bloom in my gut.

I may have to leave my family for the next 6+ years(if I'm lucky I'll get out before my majority) but at least I now have one hell of a reputation.


End file.
